Mutagen

Day 70 - 7:11 AM - Padilla, San Jose, Antipolo, Rizal

As they already left the outskirts of the city, the atmosphere was now relaxed as morning came.

In these areas, mutated animals were the worst things they could encounter. Stronger mutated infected could also be spotted.

Nevertheless, the number of them was rather low.

Unlike in the middle of the city where the infected would come continuously in hordes, here, encountering enemies with this large group was not as dangerous.

Furthermore, with Chaflar and Mark's presence, only Feral Mutated Animals and Mutated Infected would dare come near them. As for the non-feral animals, they would rather stay away.

It seemed that the animals considered their presence as similar to apex predators.

There were also Gifre and Logan that were not just ordinary infected. Not to mention the [King Type] infected that was also present.

Any sane animal would surely shiver at the existence of this group.

As for the previous night, it passed rather smoothly.

Of course, except for one instance where everyone heard a loud sound of a metal door opening.

The soldiers hurriedly rushed where the sound came from and saw the bottom of the dried-up swimming pool vanished into what seemed a bunker.

When they saw Mark and the girls below, everyone was surprised.

***

"Be careful! Those are explosives! Carry that carefully!"

Lieutenant Baller's loud voice echoed across the back area of the mansion. He led his soldiers as they moved out most of the supplies Mark and the girls found last night.

Everyone who saw the amount of supplies inside the bunker was amazed. Just the number of canned goods was about a fifth of what Bay City Settlement currently had. For the weapons, ammunition, and explosives, there were about twenty times as much as the soldiers carried in this journey.

Still, it made the soldiers wonder how this large amount of illegal equipment managed to enter the country. This amount was more than enough to accuse someone of plotting terrorism.

The most hateful thing for the soldiers was that the majority of these weapons and equipment were way better than what they had.

It was an unfortunate truth.

The weapons, equipment, and even the vehicles, the military of this country had, were outdated. The government deemed research for weapons as unnecessary. Thus, there was no weapon research done by the government known to the public.

Thus, for the weapons and equipment, the military needed, the government relied on other countries, especially, America. In fact, most models of guns the armed forces of the Philippines had were American Models. It was the same for tanks, military vehicles, and even aircraft.

The worst part, other countries would surely not try to sell their newest technology. That was why the armed forces ended up with these old models. Furthermore, to cut the budget, the government settled for second-hand things.

This fact made the soldiers of this country rather pitiful.

They were already commendable being able to stand against the apocalypse in this condition.

Feeling the envy of these soldiers to the weapons and equipment, Mark decided to donate a set for every soldier in this mission. The number of soldiers was not that many at all and would not become a demerit. This made them not only happy but also thankful for Mark's generosity.

Of course, since that deal was only for the soldiers, there were a few people that were not happy. These people were nothing else but Harold's group. Nevertheless, they could not do anything. These things were not found by them. The only thing they could do was to remain jealous of Mark's luck.

These supplies were precious. No one would be able to deny that. However, after the outbreak started, it was nothing but "finders keepers" and "first come first serve". This time, even if there were soldiers here, everything inside the bunker was owned by Mark and his group since they were the ones that found it.

If they wanted something like this, they needed to find one themselves. Unless... They had the guts to steal. Of course, they did not have it. Thus, they could only stare in envy while the soldiers crammed all the supplies they could into the vehicles. Even the roofs of the vehicles had several boxes tied on them.

Everything was ready to go after the soldiers finished loading the supplies inside the vehicles. Unfortunately, there was not enough space or vehicles to carry everything. In fact, all they could load right now were the weapons and equipment and a small portion of food and water inside the bunker.

They decided to prioritize the weapons over the food and water. It was Mark's idea.

Since they would not be able to carry everything, they would need to come back here to get the things left behind. Since Mark and Miracle already broke the things that hid the bunker, like the bookshelf that hid the hidden room, and the metal tiles in the room, it was still possible that some people might find it.

In that case, it was better to take away the possible source of danger which were the weapons. As for the food, some of it could be taken away, but it was too many for all of it to be taken away.

Of course, Mark also prepared to block the doors and close the pool just in case. He would give anyone a chance to easily steal his things.

"Sir, we are done loading."

Lieutenant Baller reported to Mark who was inside the bunker. Aside from the hidden door in the master's bedroom, there was another door hidden in the garden which made it easier to go in and out of the bunker. It was just that the door was well hidden under a huge statue that no one would be able to see it unless someone came from another entrance.

Unfortunately, the humvee inside the bunker was already broken. For two months without proper maintenance, different problems could happen to a vehicle. Even the gas inside the gas tank was already bad. They tried to hotwire it and it managed to start. However, the sound the engine made brought them the idea that it would be better to leave it here for now.

At ten in the morning, they eat an early lunch and left. When they arrived, the convoy looked a normal military convoy. Now that they were leaving, the convoy looked more like a merchant caravan. Even Chaflar's and Gifre's back had boxes of supplies tied onto them.

As the convoy left, stayed behind to carry on securing the bunker. He eyed the vehicle the survivors led by Harold. The soldiers were more trustworthy than them. That was why he decided to secure the bunker after everyone left.

Securing the broken doors, not only that he used [Blood Metal] to seal the doors, then even added a mechanism that would release a burst of miasma once the doors were opened. He made some sealed boxes using [Blood Metal], sealed a thick ball of miasma inside and put the box on the mechanism. He did it to each door that led to the bunker.

"Master, aren't you being too cautious?" Ignis said as it flew around Mark while he made the traps. "I don't think that anyone will be able to make it here easily."

"There's nothing bad with being cautious. What is bad is not being cautious and regretting it after."

Mark replied as he installed the last trap at the door under the statue in the garden.

"Okay, I'm done."

Mark stretched his arms and back. Making contraptions like this was rather hard as he had no blueprints to follow and just did it on a whim.

"Are you going to fly back?"

Ignis asked.

"Well, yeah. But not with my wings. I want to try something else."

Mark said as he stared at Ignis.

Ignis shivered.

***

"I find skateboarding hard to do before... Did my body balance got better?"

Mark said as he flew over the highway.

In high school, he tried to ride a skateboard. However, he almost fell which made him consider not to ride one ever. This time, however, he was experiencing the same feeling. The difference was that he was not falling this time and was able to perfectly balance himself.

And at what was he balancing on?

Ignis sighed as he resigned to his fate.

The demon sword flew at fast speeds while Mark balanced himself on it. It was pretty much a scene commonly seen in Chinese cultivation fiction.

Mark enjoyed the cold air that brushed against his body as he experienced riding on a flying sword. It was a whole new experience on par with riding on a dragon's back. Although his posture was not elegant at all, at least, he was not falling.

Soon, Mark caught up with the convoy. It seemed that they were in trouble.

"A termite nest?"

Mark murmured as he saw a mound beside the highway. It was about five meters tall. As for how wide the nest was, the area was rather questionable. Some parts of the nest overlapped the highway. It seemed that the presence of the convoy disturbed the nest and the termites came out to protect the nest.

It became a problem to the convoy as the termites blocked the highway. The situation might have been fine if the termites were just normal ones, however, each termite was about the size of an adult house cat while the soldier termites were about the size of an adult dog.

Chaflar led the fight and was breathing flames to kill the termites that came close to the convoy. The soldiers also started to fight the termites. They used melee weapons on worker termites while they shot the soldier termites with guns. There was no way to fight the soldier termites in close quarters because of their sword-like mandibles.

Even though the enemies were just termites, it was not easy. Not only their size grew larger but their exoskeleton, especially the soldier termites, became sturdier. Furthermore, there were too many of them.

The convoy was in a pinch with no way out other than to retreat.

It was when...

BOOM! BOOM!

Balls of black flames exploded in the ranks of the mutated termites. Then, a long blade of black flames flew towards the side of the highway which forced the rest of the termites to retreat.

Everyone looked behind them where the flames came from.

There, they saw Mark riding on his sword like a hoverboard.

"What are you all staring at?" Mark shouted as he passed over the convoy. "Hurry up and drive! There's still a lot of termites coming out!"

Everyone snapped out of staring at Mark with strange expressions. They hurriedly board their vehicles and drove off.

Mark secured that the termites would not get in the way. Those sword-like mandibles of soldier termites looked like something that would deflate a wheel of a vehicle.

Of course, Mark was sure that he could deal with these termites and wipe them out. The problem was that it would consume a lot of time just trying to force the termites out of their nest.

As the convoy left the vicinity of the termite nest, Mark followed and flew above the convoy. This way, he could overlook the whole convoy and keep watch for possible danger.

It was rather efficient as Ignis only needed to absorb Mark's miasma and it would be able to continue flying without problems. The only hard thing was that Mark could only stand on Ignis and balance himself. There was no way to sit as Ignis was not wide enough to be sat on.

From time to time, Mark's feet would feel numb and he would end up deciding to rest on Chaflar's back. Of course, once he recovered, he went back practicing how to fly properly on Ignis.

The day passed without too many problems. They passed by several towns and barangays, but there was nothing too troublesome aside for a few annoying [Predator Type] mutated infected. They kept using the forest as camouflage which made Mark have a hard time finding them. Fortunately, Mei managed to handle these annoying infected effectively.

Aside from the enemies on the road, however, there was another annoying thing. Emika just would not keep quiet as she kept on shouting to let her ride on Ignis too.

Finally, they reached the place where they would drop off the supplies they transported. This place was still far from the settlement. However, this place was where the road that led to Barangay Daraitan was located. Since there were no roads leading directly to their base, they could only use the one going through that barangay.

However, Mark could not bring this convoy there or the location of the convoy would be compromised.

As such, they decided to drop the supplies in a hidden place nearby and leave Chaflar to guard it.

After they drop the supplies off and left Chaflar, they continued on their way.

It was already after sunset. However, there was no need to set up camp.

Spending another hour under the night sky, they finally reached the New Infanta Settlement.